Ucf Kicks Schneider Off Team

November 5, 2003|By Alan Schmadtke Orlando Sentinel

Orlando — A tumultuous football season at the University of Central Florida took a stunning turn Tuesday when the school ended the career of record-setting quarterback Ryan Schneider, suspending him and starting center Cedric Gagne-Marcoux for the rest of the season for a violation of team rules.

UCF coach Mike Kruczek, after consulting with Athletic Director Steve Orsini, settled on the suspension before practice and told his team after practice that neither player would be back this season.

The suspension sets the stage for highly touted Winter Park freshman Steven Moffett to make his first career start Saturday at Eastern Michigan.

Kruczek declined to say specifically after Tuesday's practice that Moffett would burn his redshirt season over the final three games, but his hints were clear. Moffett took most of the snaps Tuesday with the first-team offense, zipping completions to receivers, then proclaiming he can't wait to play.

"I've wanted to play this whole year," Moffett said. "I don't care if it's only three games or whatever. I look at it as an opportunity to play, a chance to get a jump on next year. I came here to play."

The Knights won't name their starter until Saturday. Until then, they'll try to get Moffett up to speed on signals and get more learning time for backups Jon Rivera and Brandon Sumner.

Kruczek and the university declined to release details of the players' offenses, citing privacy laws.

Sources close to Schneider and Gagne-Marcoux said that neither player secured properly signed courtesy slips that inform professors they will be missing class because of road trips. Professors are supposed to acknowlege by signature that they were informed of the players' class conflicts.

Both players met with Orsini late Tuesday for clarification on the suspension. For now, both are still in school but will have to meet with student conduct officials to continue.

"We've lost two very prolific football players," Kruczek said. "They made a poor choice. They have to live with the consequences."

For Schneider, a fifth-year senior from Plantation, those include not reaping the rest of UCF's passing records that he doesn't already own. Had he continued on his 2003 pace of 278 yards a game passing, he would have broken the school's career passing record next week against Marshall in a nationally televised game.

He ends his career with 10,976 passing yards, 12th all-time in Division I-A and No. 2 at UCF behind Daunte Culpepper (11,412). He already owns the Knights' single game (497 yards) and single-season (3,770 yards) passing marks.

For Gagne-Marcoux, a redshirt freshman from Quebec, the suspension caps a season in which he started nine games.

"I don't want to say anything about this right now," Schneider said. "I'm too upset. I'll talk about this later."

KNIGHTS OFF TO C-USA

Tuesday morning, Orsini found himself in a regular staff meeting with President John Hitt when his phone chirped.

On the other end, Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese delivered some expected news, that his presidents weren't yet ready to commit to UCF -- or any other school -- for football-only membership.

Within two hours, Hitt and Orsini started and finished something they had talked about when they first met two years ago -- putting all the Golden Knights' sports into the same conference.

UCF told the Mid-American Conference it is leaving after the 2004 season for football and the Atlantic Sun that it is leaving after 2004-05 for all other sports. Only women's rowing will stay independent.

Then the Knights accepted an all-sports invitation to Conference USA, likely to be part of a two-division, 12-school league that sweeps from Texas through Louisiana, Alabama and Florida to North Carolina. In addition to the Knights, C-USA also added SMU, Tulsa and Marshall.

C-USA officials told UCF it could expect between $500,000 and $1 million a year from the league's revenue sharing.